All Together Now

By Jyoti Thottam

Gadgets that do it all rarely do it all well, but Kyocera's new 7135 Smartphone, a combination cell phone and PDA, gives it a good shot. The compact clamshell runs Palm's OS 4.1 on a color screen, and the stylus tucks neatly into a spot near its hinge. The Palm part of the 7135 is fine, but it truly stands out as a phone. It uses a regular keypad rather than a touchscreen, so it feels much more like a phone than its competitors, the Samsung I300, Handspring Treo and T-Mobile Pocket PC Phone Edition. And the halves of the 7135's brain work well together. Dial a number, and one click enters it in your Palm address book. Highlight and tap on a number from your Palm, and the phone dials it. At about $600, it's not cheaper than buying each separately, but at 6.6 oz., it's lighter. One catch: it won't be available until late fall. --By Jyoti Thottam